"Hi can you tell me about what you need in order to get an apartment?" she asks. This was her actual first question: she asked nothing about price.

"In terms of the application process?"

"Yeah"

"Well, with your application we would need something that verifies income. You can use 3 recent paystubs, a W2, or even a letter from your employer: basically anything with a number on it. And then when we run your credit, it's not based just on income; the program combines both income and credit to give us one composite number to let us know if you're approved or not"